Military history, national security, and baseball

Supporters of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) would have us believe that the treaty makes the world a safer place. For 30 years, media, political, and even military elite have all called for ratification of UNCLOS.

But why should the U.S. ratify a treaty that, considering Chinese ongoing territorial aggression against its neighbors, we can see is useless when it comes to maintaining “peace, justice and progress for all peoples of the world,” as the charter states?

Chinese naval vessels recently violated UN law by using their fire control radar to target a Japanese naval destroyer and military helicopters operating near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in February.

The rocky, uninhabited islands belonged to the Japanese until after World War II, when the United States assumed temporary control. The islands returned to Japanese administration in 1972, but the Chinese didn’t voice their claim to the islands until a potentially significant oil field was discovered in the region later that decade.

For months, Chinese and Filipino vessels have maintained a delicate standoff over the Scarborough Shoals (Huangyan Island to China). Although 500 miles from the nearest Chinese port, Chinese fishing vessels flaunt the law by harvesting their catch within the UNCLOS-established exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, just 124 miles from their coast.

In 1947, the Chinese government claimed virtually all of the South China Sea in what has become known as the “Nine-Dash Line.” China, a member nation of UNCLOS, refuses to explain the details on how they reached their far-fetching boundary.

A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks states that a senior Chinese government maritime law expert admittedly did not know of any historical basis behind the “Nine-Dash Line.”

Note: For a more thorough analysis of the Law of the Sea Treaty, read the Victory Institute’s Fact Sheet available here.

Every few years, Congress takes up the issue of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), officially referred to in the international community as the U.N. Convention for the Law of the Sea. The convention is essentially a constitution for the world’s oceans, but the economic protections and navigation rights come at a price.

LOST advocates would have us believe that when the treaty first reared its head 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan refused to sign due to technicalities, which were addressed in 1994.

However, Reagan’s former attorney general, Ed Meese recently wrote that while a portion of Reagan’s concerns were addressed, subverting our national sovereignty to an unaccountable international governing body was not.

Reagan did have issues with portions of the treaty, but more importantly, the president opposed LOST because it was a direct threat to our national sovereignty. In fact, Reagan opposed the treaty so strongly that he fired the State Department staff that negotiated it.

Meese gives a full account of Reagan’s history with LOST and is a must-read.

But how much weight should we put behind what other people say about a former president who is conveniently no longer alive to defend himself – especially those who had nothing to do with him?

For nearly 30 years, the United Nations has sought ratification of the onerous Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Although numerous presidents have supported LOST – formally known as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea – fortunately, the Senate has never managed to ratify the treaty.

What is LOST and why should it concern the American voter?

We ask Cliff Kincaid, editor of the Accuracy in Media Report and president of America’s Survival, Inc.. Kincaid has led a national education campaign about LOST.

CHRIS CARTER: How does LOST threaten American sovereignty?

CLIFF KINCAID: This treaty is the biggest giveaway of American sovereignty and resources since the Panama Canal Treaty. It gives the United Nations bureaucracy control over the oceans of the world — seven-tenths of the world’s surface. It sets up an International Seabed Authority to decide who gets access to oil, gas and minerals in international waters. The companies that get those rights to harvest those resources have to pay a global tax to the International Seabed Authority.

CARTER: You wrote that the passage of LOST “could be the final nail in the coffin of U.S. Naval superiority.” How so?

While introducing the new National Security Strategy, President Obama recently declared that the “War on Terror” is over. More accurately, war as we know it is over. Through soft power, the United States has reinvented conflict into a feel good, region-building contingency operation where soldiers become ambassadors rather than warriors – seeking to win over our enemies rather than defeat them.

“We will always seek to delegitimize the use of terrorism and to isolate those who carry it out,” it states. “Yet this is not a global war against a tactic – terrorism…”

First off, can Obama name one example how his administration has done anything to delegitimize Islamic terrorists?

I do agree that one can’t declare war on terrorism (calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies … [to attain] political, religious, or ideological goals) any more than you can declare war on L-shaped ambushes. I concede that the Global War on Terror is not the best name for our current conflict. But the same argument could be made about World War II. Ultimately, what the war is called is pointless. The important thing is that it is brought to a quick, decisive, and favorable end, and as of yet there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

“… or a religion – Islam.”

This is clearly not a war against Islam. The fact that our leaders continue to bring this up is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, and pandering to our enemies. Members of the Islamic religion – the jihadists – are at war with us, whether we acknowledge it or not. But if one were to read the Qur’an, one would find that jihad is a pillar of Islam, not something that was taken out of context by misunderstanders of the so-called “religion of peace” or created by George Bush and Dick Cheney in order to justify their diabolical scheme. If you doubt me, see for yourself.

“Our long-term security will not come from our ability to instill fear in other peoples but through our capacity to speak to their hopes.”

The puss-nut diplomats and think tankers that came up with this s–t should be called pirates and turned in to the Russians. Since before Moses was a corporal, civilizations protected themselves by instilling “fear” among those who seek to subjugate or eliminate their culture – as jihadists do today. The fact that Obama doesn’t want to “instill fear” in jihadists should be a matter of grave concern for Americans.